Court to resume Timoshenko case hearings July 28.

KIEV, July 28 (Itar-Tass) -- Kiev's Pechersky Court will resume
hearings on the case of former Ukrainian Prime Minister and opposition
Batkivshchina (Fatherland) party leader Yulia Timoshenko on Thursday, July
28.
The court plans to question two witnesses in the case, in which
Timoshenko is facing charges of abuse of office while making gas
agreements with Russia in 2009.
Five witnesses testified in court on Wednesday, July 27, including
former Fuel and Energy Minister Yuri Prodan, who said that Timoshenko had
not tried to pass his directives for gas talks with Russia for the
government's decision.
"I took this as an instruction from the prime minister, subject to
execution. There was no practice of getting directives approved by the
government," he said.
According to Prodan, the talks in 2009 had produced the best possible
price for gas, and the government could not raise tariffs for the transit
of Russian natural gas because Russia insisted the rates were fixed until
2011.
The prosecution has accused Timoshenko of acting in excess of his
powers and giving directives for signing a gas contract with Russia in
2009 without the government's consent. As a result, gas prices in Ukraine
increased, but the tariff for transit, pegged to the price of gas, did not
change, which caused damage to the budget in the amount of about 200
million U.S. dollars.